Our Urban Town a Publication of the Staten Island Urban CenterOur Urban Town is a quarterly publication that shares thought provoking, intellectually provocative, community news, ideas and opinions from Staten Island's urban neighborhoods.

#reSIStah issue​in celebration of women's history month

​the Woke reSIStah Issue Our Urban Town publishes thought provoking ideas, intellectually provocative reflections, community news, and opinions from the very people in the community who passionately live and/or work with these issues. In this Woke ReSistah Issue, Our Urban Town shares the writings of women activists on Staten Island as a tribute to the contributions of women right now in this borough. Due to space constraints, these are just a small sample of women activists doing the work on the island, but our hope is that these writings inspire readers to be or continue to be activists, to share real stories, advocate for real solutions and to fight for real for the things they believe in. In the era of WOKE and RESIST, it’s our time to be activists everywhere we go and in everything we do.Kelly Vilar,​Editor of Our Urban Town & ​CEO of Staten Island Urban Center

Annecia Steiniger, Graniteville- Allegheny College ​ There are many ways of thinking about climate change. You can think of it as doomsday, when it comes for us were finished and there’s nothing we can do about it. Or you can dismiss it outright and just not think about it at all, like a frightened child hiding under their covers with their eyes closed. Or you can think of it as an opportunity, a challenge to rise to, how do we address the needs of a changing world. The last one is my favorite, the most hopeful and the most practical. We must adapt to survive, that’s just how it works. Whether or not you believe that mitigation is possible adaptation must occur. We are already feeling the effects of climate change and according to scientists, it is only going to get worse. Remember Superstorm Sandy? Remember how it crippled this city? The places that were hardest hit are just now returning to something resembling what normal was before the storm. Climate change promises to make once-in-a-lifetime storms like that into more frequent occurrences plus they will be more severe, and they will be difficult to predict because climate change is and will continue to wreak havoc on our ecological systems and their patterns. Places like New York City and Miami are focused on adapting to climate change by making communities more resilient to flooding. Here on Staten Island’s east shore there are plans to build a sea wall. Though I’d argue that they aren’t currently doing enough. There aren’t currently any plans to protect the North Shore, which we know was hit hard by Sand too, and frequently experiences flooding. Our government seems unable and unwilling to take the bold steps and make the big plans which would address the life-altering and life-threatening effects of climate change. Flood resiliency is very much needed and it is an issue which our local government can address more easily than the other effects. Take food scarcity for one. It has been predicted that climate change will make food production nigh on impossible in the areas and ways in which we currently do it. One solution to the impending food shortage could be to encourage those with an entrepreneurial spirit to trying farming in the city, outside in empty lots, or inside in vertical farms. This is a strategy of both mitigation and adaptation. Industrial agriculture is one of the biggestcontributors to the pollution causing climate change. All New York residents can tell you that our transportation system needs a serious upgrade. Well, since we’re going to need to adapt it to climate change anyway we should take this opportunity to build a transportation system which is more energy efficient and which works with the environment instead of against it. Climate change is an opportunity for our city, our country, and our species. With a little creative thinking, hard work, and cooperation we can easily build better and stronger communities. Or we can ignore it and watch the world descend into chaos. Either way, radical change is coming.